


Cruel Summer

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, rated T for thematic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 10:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "The guardians introduce Jack to one of their favorite friends.This other Spirit (Summer? Pan? Cupid? Whoever you choose) has a reason to hang around the Guardians all the time.Thing is, he/she is seriously mean to Jack. When someone is around, he acts nice. But when he is alone with Jack, he hurts him phisically, humiliates him and tells him things like he is a burden to the other Guardians.300 years of solitude result in Jack beliving what the other says and keeping secret about it. Until, of course, someone points out there is something seriously wrong with the winter spirit, and much h/c is had.Bonus: if the spirit who alerts the other guardians is Pitch Black, because, you know, only he gets to make Frost suffer.Please, give me my much needed dose of Jack whumpage and conforting fic."So, the abusive spirit in this mini-fic is a spirit of Summer, and actually a new friend of the Guardians. Possibly motivated by envy. The mini-fic is the reveal to the Guardians, who are seriously pissed about this. No bonus.





	Cruel Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 4/13/2015.

Jack gingerly pulled down the sleeves of his sweatshirt. There. The burns were all covered now, and all he had to do was avoid getting too close to anyone, avoid getting touched. And that wouldn’t be too hard. Like Summer had said, no one would ever really want to touch Jack with all his ice. Like he had shown, he couldn’t even handle the heat of summer that everyone longed for.   
  
Jack crouched down on a ridge of snow outside the North Pole. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself, but the burns Summer had given him made that impossible.  
  
Well, it wasn’t like he could protect himself from what he was about to do, anyway. Today was a meeting for Guardians only–so he was a coward, not wanting to do this in front of Summer–and he was going to resign from them. Everything he had been ignoring before Summer came welled up in his mind again. He wasn’t learning fast enough. His center was too nebulous. His powers had nothing to do with keeping kids safe. No one liked winter, they only tolerated it.   
  
Maybe Jack had been necessary against Pitch, but the Guardians shouldn’t have misinterpreted what the Moon said and taken him on.  
  
***  
  
“Seems like there are plenty of reasons to make Summer a Guardian,” North said. “He could be counterpart to Jack. And summer spirits have not really sought us out before, so maybe he has been drawn by Man in Moon without knowing it.”  
  
“We shouldn’t try to take on another Guardian now.” Bunny folded his arms. “Not now, not so soon after Jack. Summer’s too…new. And you always go on about centers, what’s Summer’s center? Sure, we like him, but is he a Guardian?”  
  
“It’s that kind of wariness that made us leave Jack alone for far too long,” Tooth said. “We don’t want to repeat our mistakes. The only thing is…Jack doesn’t really seem to be hitting it off with Summer. I mean, maybe they’re too different for it to be easy, but…”  
  
Jack changes around him, Sandy signed.  
  
“Exactly,” said Bunny. “I mean, winter and spring are pretty different, but Jack never toned it down around me.”  
  
“In that case, we need to ask Jack what’s going on,” Tooth said. “Maybe they just shouldn’t be around each other, and neither of them realize it yet because they haven’t been in a situation like this before.”  
  
Where is Jack, anyway? Sandy asked. He’s usually the first one here.  
  
Just then, there was a knock on the door. “The yetis must have spotted him,” North said, but when he opened it, Jack himself was standing there. “Jack!” North paused for a moment, but Jack didn’t move any closer to him, so he refrained from slinging an arm around his shoulders. “We expected you at the window.”  
  
Jack shook his head. “That would have just made everyone cold.”  
  
“But we would have gotten to see you flying,” Tooth said with a smile, which Jack didn’t answer.   
  
“Look,” he said. “Look, it would have been pointless. I’m not–I’m not going to stay very long. I’m not going to waste your time.”  
  
“Mate, if anyone does that at these meetings, it’s North,” said Bunny. North scoffed, but before he could make a comeback, Jack interrupted.  
  
“No! I mean…please, listen. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I know I was a strange choice for a Guardian, and that you’ve all had to pay more attention to me than you should, even though you’re all busy. I know I’ve been a problem. But I’m finally going to solve that, and do what I should have done months ago. I’m resigning from the Guardians.”  
  
After the flurry of protests and demands for explanation had died down a little, Jack went on. “You don’t have to pretend to want me around permanently. I’ve been talking it out, and I understand that my powers aren’t really suited to this.”  
  
“But you were chosen!” North said. “You cannot give up your center.”  
  
“Who have you been talking this out with?” Tooth asked.  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said after a long pause.  
  
Sandy nudged Bunny’s leg, and he stepped forward. “Yes it does, Frostbite. Even if someone’s yourself. I know we’ve had our differences and we still do, but I’ll be the first to argue that you should be here, and that you should be a Guardian. You can–”   
  
Jack flinches away when Bunny lays his hand on his arm.  
  
Bunny froze in confusion, and Sandy, seeing that a more straightforward approach was needed, jumped up and pulled Jack’s sleeve up despite his protests.  
  
“You’re not clumsy enough for those to be accidents,” Bunny said in a low voice.  
  
“I can’t tell you…”  
  
“Yes you can!” Bunny said, much louder. Jack jumped back, and North put his hand on Bunny’s shoulder.  
  
“But I–it makes sense, okay, I deserve these things, but I won’t once I stop pretending that I deserve to be a Guardian. The person…they’re right.”  
  
“No, they aren’t,” said Bunny, shrugging off North’s hand.  
  
“But you…you like them.”  
  
“I don’t like them now!”  
  
“Summer,” Tooth said, looking around at the others, ending with Jack. “Is that right?”  
  
Jack nodded miserably.  
  
“But why?” North asked.  
  
“Who cares?” Bunny crouched down slightly. “Jack, I want to take you to the Warren. I can treat your injuries there.”  
  
“What if I freeze something?”  
  
“It’ll be fine or I’ll grow it back. I’ve said that before. Springtime can handle it.”  
  
“But is it…worth it?”  
  
“Look, Jack, yes, it is, you’re worth it, if you want someone to go on and on you’re going to have to ask North to come with, and I want him and Tooth and Sandy to figure out if this Summer has an evil plan or is just evil. That all right?” He glanced away from Jack for a moment.  
  
“I’ll be glad to find that out,” Tooth said, flicking a coin across her fingers, “no matter how many of his memories I have to go through.”  
  
Sandy simply nodded.   
  
“Of course,” said North. “After all, the question of before has been definitively settled now. And no threat to a Guardian can be tolerated.”  
  
“All right, Jack?”  
  
Jack nodded.  
  
“Good,” said Bunny, tapping his foot on the floor and opening a tunnel. “I hope that Summer gets so scared that even Pitch shows up to see what the fuss is about.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #sometimes I worry about the prompters #this isn't a fun story #why did you need it?
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: People really like their h/c, or rescue scenarios.


End file.
